Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of The War

The War
The War
Author: Marguerite Duras
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, History
Book Type: Paperback
hardtack avatar reviewed on + 2569 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


Duras, one of the most important literary figures of France, is best known in the United States for her novel "The Lover" and her film script for "Hiroshima, Mon Amour."

In this book, she write of her experiences with the French Resistance during World War II. One of the best parts of the book describes the agony she underwent waiting to hear if her husband survived the Nazi concentration camps.

In the last days of the war, as Europe was liberated and Germany was overpowered, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people wondered if their loved ones had survived. This is probably the best narration of that experience I've ever read. For the first time I understood how people woke up from a dark dream and struggled to come to grips with what had happened to them, and wondering even more how life could continue.